


Overwatch Prompts

by Skyler



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-09-02 09:56:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8662990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyler/pseuds/Skyler
Summary: A repository for whatever Overwatch prompts I receive through my tumblr.





	1. Widowtracer, College Roommates AU

Amélie hiked her boots up on the seat in front of hers and rested her cheek against her hand. Mandatory attendance on a Friday should have been criminal, especially with the obvious disinterest around her in the auditorium. Whatever administrator had thought that up was getting a silent curse from twenty students watching the same film as the week before to fill the time before the three-day weekend. To spot new subtleties in the imagery, Professor Amari had said. It certainly wasn’t a contractual obligation that meant they were all still stuck there while the snow piled up outside, watching Orson Welles pontificate from the top of a Ferris wheel.

She looked at the clock. It was almost over and that was her only solace, but it hardly made the idea of an icepick in her temple any less appealing. No one else around her was keeping up the pretense, so she reached into her bag in the next seat and pulled out her phone. Amélie grimaced. It was as if Lena didn’t even have classes, the way she sent messages near-constantly and wore down Amélie’s battery. There were the usual inane observations (“It’s snowing!”), things that made Amélie’s stomach turn (“Mei got me some weird Chinese ramen!”), and the occasional bit that actually piqued her interest (“I traded the ramen for a Ghibli animation cel!”). Responding to Lena usually meant an onslaught of excited replies—her enthusiasm was almost endearing, in much the same way that an overexcited puppy was endearing, for a little while—but her attention was better focused on her roommate’s yammering than the movie on the screen.

_A. Lacroix [15:37]: What is ‘Ghibli’?_  
_L. Oxton [15:37]: Whaddya mean, what’s Ghibli? Princess Mononoke? Howl’s Moving Castle?_  
_A. Lacroix [15:38]: Never heard of those. Are they some of your cartoons?_

Even the subsequent vibration of her phone seemed angry. Amélie rarely missed an opportunity to take a dig at Lena’s animation major, otherwise staying sane with a hyperactive whippet of a roommate would have been a much more daunting prospect. She let the phone sit for a few minutes while she counted the ceiling tiles before finally taking a look at the indignation.

_L. Oxton [15:39]: They’re films! Same as yours, Frenchie. And that studio is a cornerstone of Japanese animation!_  
_A. Lacroix [15:44]: It sounds like you’ve been spending too much time with Genji. And we study real films here, Lena. Not drawings. How are you able to text so fast in class, anyway?_  
_L. Oxton [15:44]: Now listen you, come straight home once you’re through there. We’ve got plans tonight._

That didn’t bode well. She didn’t actually have plans for that evening other than a reading on fire symbolism, but she was tempted to invent a dead relative whose funeral she had to attend immediately to get out of whatever Lena had gotten into her head. There were worse ways to spend a Friday evening, she supposed. Probably.

_A. Lacroix [15:47]: Am I going to be stuck watching you lose to Hana over and over in some game again?_

Lena didn’t reply immediately, which likely meant she was actually doing something in her class. Perhaps her little animation project for the day had finally stopped rendering. There were some uses for the field, Amélie would admit, but Lena actually calling them _films_ …she rolled her eyes and spread her arms across the seats beside her. Out the back of the auditorium, through one of the glass doors half-visible behind the projector screen, she watched the snow pile up.

The class ended eventually, and not a minute too soon. Amélie was out the door before the projector had a chance to cut off, grimacing at the thought of what the snow would do to her boots. Her phone began buzzing once again, and she ignored it until she’d gotten into her car in the next lot over. More of Lena extoling the virtues of her cartoons, she saw. Amélie didn’t reply, and instead prayed that her car would start in the cold. It gave some protest, but ultimately the engine hummed to life and she was able to get back to their apartment building with only a minimum of near misses. How was it that everyone suddenly lost the ability to drive when there was a bit of snow on the ground?

Lena’s car was already sitting in its usual spot, crooked parking job and dinged vanity plate—OUTATIME—giving it away even under the dusting of snow, and Amélie backed in beside it. She had to take a few minutes, winding one idle finger through the end of her hair, to prepare for another weekend of Lena trying to drag her along to whatever she was doing. Without the prospect of driving for a few days, the town actually looked quite nice, building up a stark white shell.

More angry buzzing broke her out of her reverie. She answered it before looking at the screen. She didn’t really need to, after all. “Allô?”

“What’re you waiting for? Come upstairs!”

Amélie craned her neck to look out at the corner of the windshield, up to the third-floor window, where a shock of short brown hair was barely visible. “Were you sitting in the hall and watching my parking spot, _ma petite connard_?” she asked, almost purring into the phone. Sometimes she was glad Lena didn’t speak a single solitary word of French.

“I—ah—just get up here, Amélie!”

So easy to fluster. She had to hope Lena would never bother to look up the things Amélie called her. The snow was coming down heavier as she got her bag from the back seat and pulled her windshield wipers up, and an errant flake that got down the back of her neck made her shiver uncontrollably all the way to the front door. She was barely inside before Lena came tearing out of the stairwell, intent on escorting her the rest of the way. “Elevator, _elevator_ ,” she grumbled, holding one strap of her bag with her free hand while Lena led her around with the other.

“Oh, fine.”

“Can I know what this is about now?” Amélie asked as the elevator trundled upward. Maybe it would break…but then she’d be stuck in a very small space with a very excitable girl. “Usually when you drag me around it’s because you want me to go out with you somewhere, not back to the apartment.”

“You’ll see, Miss Live-Action Elitist.”

No sooner had the elevator opened than Lena marched her down the hall, humming something to herself. “What—you left our door open, _imbécile_! This isn’t a dormitory!”

“Okay, I definitely know that one was meant to be an insult,” Lena said as they went inside. Amélie turned her nose up as she cast a quick glance over their shared space. The kitchen looked like a valiant attempt at cooking had gone wrong, and her roommate was clearly creating some kind of tower out of their plates in the sink. To what end, she couldn’t say. Lena seemed to exist on a diet of sugar and Red Bull, not anything that required cooking or dishware.

“I thought I asked you to clean all this up,” Amélie said through a grumble.

“Or what, you’ll take that stick out of your ass and go upside my head with it?”

She could think of a few more worthwhile applications for a good firm stick on Lena, but Amélie only pursed her lips. That line of thought usually ended with her mentally slapping herself and a cold shower. “Can you at least make the kitchen not look like a bomb went off in it? I’ll sit through whatever you want if you do that.”

Lena snapped off a salute and a crooked smile before planting herself in front of the sink. Bribery always worked where threats failed, she thought as she ducked into her bedroom. It was the last bastion of cleanliness in the apartment, even if she’d gone overboard in keeping everything neat to contrast with the chaos in the other bedroom that constantly spilled out into the public areas. She set her bags down, nudged her keyboard back into alignment with the edge of her desk, and briefly considered locking the door and going out the fire escape, but she hung up her coat instead. Lena could be an annoying overactive puppy, but she was Amélie’s annoying overactive puppy.

A bomber jacket had been haphazardly thrown over the couch when she emerged again, and she draped it by reflex over one of the chairs at the table. The drying rack beside the kitchen sink was filling quickly, and to Amélie’s amazement most of the plates looked passably clean. She shrugged and looked down at the stack of disc cases on the counter. “Did you take—wait, these aren’t my films.”

“They will be when we’re done with them!”

She felt her eye twitching. There had to be a good fifteen movies there, each one’s title more nauseatingly colorful than the last. Amélie picked up the one on top. “ _Ratatouille_?”

“I thought we’d start off with something French to ease you into it!” Lena said over her shoulder as she fought with the remains of some eggs in a frying pan.

“Oh, you must _really_ like me…”

There was a loud _clang_ from the sink where Lena dropped the frying pan, but she only laughed nervously and went back to the rest of the dishes. Amélie put a bag of popcorn in the microwave—mindless entertainment demanded a mindless snack—and had a thought to get a blanket since the heat seemed questionable at best, but she relaxed against the counter instead, watching Lena sway her narrow hips with a beat in her head and twist occasionally to put something off to dry. There were worse ways to spend an afternoon.

“Right, dishes are squared away! Ready to change your mind about animation?” Lena asked with a criminally broad smile.

“I could still run, you know,” Amélie said, and Lena put on her best puppy-dog eyes until she mumbled some assent. “Fine, let’s get this over with…go ahead and start it up.”

Lena grabbed the disc cases and vaulted right over the back of the couch. One day she was going to hurt herself doing that, Amélie knew, but it was easier not to think about that possibility. She dumped the popcorn into a bowl when it was finished and took up her usual spot on the extreme left of the couch, where she had an armrest handy and her right hand was free to take notes if she was doing homework, while Lena plopped herself in the center. If it was really that mind-numbing, at least she could nod off. “And this one is about what?” Amélie asked.

“A rat that wants to be a chef!”

She didn’t feel much like popcorn, suddenly. Lena didn’t seem to mind the premise, and the bowl was empty within an hour. Amélie kept watching, and for a while earnestly tried to keep up with the story, but without a paper about it looming over her it was too insidiously easy to turn her brain off and get nothing more from the screen than bright colors and a canned joke every so often.

The first time Lena got up and disturbed the careful equilibrium of the couch, Amélie jolted to attention, a hypnic jerk to yank her back in time to at least appear cogent when Lena planted herself on the couch again. She ended up a little closer than before, with another bowl of popcorn and two glasses of—

“Is that the Beaujolais my parents sent me?” Amélie asked. Before Lena could reply, she snatched one of the glasses and took a whiff. Yes, yes it was.

“You’re being a trooper, it was a reward! Besides, the next movie’s better if you’re a little drunk.”

“Well—fine. You don’t need to swirl it around, you can just drink this kind without aerating it. Slowly, don’t gulp it all down like an animal,” Amélie said, and reached over to gently tip the glass forward. Lena sipped at the wine, her gaze flitting between the glass and Amélie, until she had drained it and Amélie could put the glass on the end table. “See? Better if you don’t wolf it down.”

Lena nodded through a stifled giggle and went up to change the discs. Amélie looked down at her own glass. She’d wanted to save it for a special occasion, or a particularly difficult assignment, but…well. There were worse times. She drank it, slowly, and a pleasant warmth bloomed up through her chest. Lena flopped back onto the couch with the remote, a hair closer still.

She would fight anyone who said so, but Lena was tiny, and it was possible to watch the alcohol take its toll after just her first glass. Her reactions to the movie were slightly delayed, her cheeks had a healthy redness to them, and she started getting more blatant with how much closer she sat to Amélie every time she got up. Finally she dropped all pretense and nestled in beside her with her head on Amélie’s shoulder, and squirmed happily when Amélie draped her arm around her.

“Aww, you getting soft on me?” Lena asked.

“Most of the furniture in here is mine, and you’re liable to crash into something if you’re not held down.”

“Won’t catch me complaining…”

Amélie found it difficult to focus on the rest of the movie.

Neither of them moved until after the credits, when Lena was able to stay reasonably upright on her way to the bathroom. It was dark outside by then, but she felt no urge to go and finish her reading. Amélie went over to the console instead and changed the discs once more, fiddling with the cases until there was a quick, sharp _smack_ on her rear. She stepped forward out of instinct, almost into the television, and caught herself as the pleasant sting coursed over her skin. A small burst of adrenaline went along with it, and her chest tightened noticeably until she forced herself to relax.

“Nice jeans!”

“You must have a death wish,” Amélie muttered as she went back to her seat. Lena jutted her chin out defiantly as she stood there, blocking the view of the television.

“Mean to do something about it, luv?”

“ _Non_ ,” she said, and stretched out in her spot. “It’s hardly sporting to kill a drunk.”

“I’m perfectly sober!”

Amélie wouldn’t go that far, but she seemed more cogent than she had before. That didn’t mean she couldn’t have her own fun, though. She looked right through Lena, denying her the attention she was usually so bent on getting one way or another. By the time the movie was past the opening crawl, Lena was beside her again, grumbling and poking indignantly at her arm that Amélie staunchly refused to raise and provide a spot for nuzzling.

“I’ll admit, the rotoscoping here is excellent.”

“Don’t ignore me!” Lena said, and swung one leg over so she was in Amélie’s lap. It was very obvious that she hadn’t thought out what to do next, judging by the fresh flash of red on her cheeks. Amélie finally turned her gaze on her roommate, on her pouting, nervous face, and let the corner of her lip turn up in a grin.

“Mean to do something about it, _cherie_?”

“Oh, you—”

Lena went to push off from Amélie’s shoulder, but the awkward position made her hand come down on Amélie’s chest instead. Amélie bit back a gasp and looked down, acutely aware of the pressure and the fact that Lena was making no effort to move her hand away.

“Exactly how drunk are you right now, Lena?” Amélie asked, laying one hand on Lena’s taut track-star leg and squeezing.

Her voice was dry, a little strangled. “I…I’m sober, why?”

“Deciding if I should do this,” she said, and reached up to kiss her.

Lena tasted of salt and wine and eagerness as the hand on her breast tightened the slightest bit, in surprise if nothing else. Amélie’s arms went wrapping around Lena’s waist, pulling her closer on her lap until they were as near as could be. Maybe it was a little residual drunkenness. Maybe it was the movies. Maybe it was the natural spillover of something left to simmer for far too long. Amélie didn’t know, or care, once Lena’s hips started rocking back and forth on hers, desperate for contact and friction. Lena seemed even more eager than her, pulling at the buttons on Amélie’s blouse until a flash of black lace showed against her pale skin.

“God, you’re beautiful,” Lena breathed once they eased back from each other. Her hand hovered tentatively over the bare skin of her chest, and Amélie guided it down until Lena’s slightly callused fingertips were dancing across the ridges of her collarbone, the soft dip of her throat, the swells of her breasts. “You’re so—how are you _real_?”

“Such flattery.” Amélie freed one of her hands so she could stand up, with the other still under Lena as she got to her feet. She stayed latched there as Amélie moved through the room, trying to navigate their apartment with fifty-four kilos suddenly stuck to her front. “Lena, the door.”

Her bedroom was lit only by a streetlight on the sidewalk below until she bumped the dimmer up slightly with her elbow. It would be much easier to clean her own room than try to navigate Lena’s. The girl herself went flying onto the bed, landing on the down comforter with a happy squeal that she tried to stifle when Amélie crawled on top of her, lifting her shirt a tiny way to kiss at the tone of her stomach.

“You’re really sober?” Amélie asked as she moved farther up, barely tasting the soft skin of Lena’s throat against her lips.

Lena smiled and reached down until she could work loose the button on Amélie’s jeans. “Why don’t I show you?”

Amélie let herself get pushed onto her back so Lena could ease off her pants and boots, shivering a bit when the cold air hit her bare legs. She shuffled farther down the bed under Lena’s direction until she was sitting at the end, where Lena could kneel down beside the bed and still have her in reach. A wicked little grin floated across Amélie’s lips. “You look good there, on the floor,” she said, and Lena looked up at her with big brown eyes. “It suits you.”

She whimpered, exposing her neck in another show of submission, and Amélie ran a hand through her short, thick hair. Lena moved easily under her direction, trailing kisses along the insides of her thighs, stopping short of her panties in a torturous denial by proxy. Finally she felt Lena’s hands running up her legs, and as Amélie unbuttoned her blouse the rest of the way there was an almost—reverent?—look on the poor girl’s face. “You really are gorgeous,” she said in a small voice, raking her fingers gently along Amélie’s thighs. “You’re just—”

“Lena, _mon chou_ —” Amélie yanked her underwear to one side hard enough to split a seam— “be a good girl and do something useful with your tongue.”

The first nervously eager press of her lips sent a burst of fire coursing up into Amélie’s chest, settling around the excited thrum of her heart and only growing stronger as Lena’s tongue went in a slow swirl across her clit. A little moan escaped her, a low sound in her throat, one that Lena took as encouragement. Amélie kept winding her hand through Lena’s hair as hot lashes of pleasure ran like shocks through her body, where she could reward Lena with playful little tugs whenever she hit upon just the right spot.

A finger pushed questioningly at her, only the one at first and then a second, and Amélie nodded with the little composure she still had. Lena pressed past a little resistance, and Amélie couldn’t help the small, strangled cry when Lena’s fingers curled upward. Her toes dug into the carpet, she clutched at her comforter, and she was sweating in the cool air as every muscle in her body locked. “Don’t stop, don’t, don’t stop…”

Everything else descended into French as all the tension gave out, flooding waves of heat and pleasure cresting through her body as they never had before. Amélie fell onto her back while her leg’s pressed around Lena’s head, keeping her in place for the spate of aftershocks. Her tongue still flashed across Amélie’s skin, but at a slower, more measured pace. When she finally worked herself free, Amélie motioned for her to stand up. She did, and apart from the slight shine on her lips and chin she still looked almost presentable. That wouldn’t do.

“Strip,” Amélie said in a still-shaky voice. She propped herself up on her elbows to watch, and suddenly Lena was back to her usual coyness, turning away to afford a view of her back as her shirt rode up and went flying, discarded, across the room. Lena gasped when Amélie shuffled off the bed and pressed into the soft tone of her back, running her hands along Lena’s sides and up to the swells of her small breasts where she teased a low whimper out of her roommate. She wondered if that was still the right word. Her jeans were still on, though unbuttoned and perched precariously on her hips. “Tell me what you want,” Amélie said in a whisper beside her ear, running her lips over the soft skin there.

“Touch me, please,” Lena whined, quivering in her grasp and even after Amélie let go of her to go to her dresser. “Please…”

“Patience is a virtue,” she said, and pulled a short length of climbing rope from one drawer. Amélie wound some of it around her palm to test the tightness. A little slack would be fine. “If I tie your hands behind your back, will you tell me if it starts to hurt?”

Lena nodded fast enough to make her hair bob back and forth, but stopped when Amélie drew one finger up her throat and under her chin. “I need to hear you say it, Lena.”

“Yes,” she breathed.

Amélie kissed her, hard—their mingled tastes had a certain heady synergy—twirled her around, and pulled her hands back. Lena’s breathing grew heavier as Amélie wrapped the rope around her wrists and worked her thumb under the material to make sure it had enough give. “ _Parfait_ …shall we?”

She slipped one hand up to Lena’s throat, and the other drifted slowly, tauntingly slowly, down past the waistband of her jeans. Amélie turned them both until they were facing the mirror beside her dresser, where Lena could get a perfect view of herself being toyed with. How different she looked from her regular self, flustered and hazy and having given up control. It was a nice change. Her teeth scraped at her lip when Amélie bit lightly on her shoulder and slipped her fingers into the tight band of Lena’s boy shorts, gliding over a thin strip of hair and to the swell below.

Lena’s legs parted as much as their position would allow and tried rolling her hips up toward Amélie’s hand, but she wasn’t going to direct their pace. Amélie looked at her in the mirror, sinking her teeth a tiny bit further until she fell still again, and then ran a finger on either side of Lena’s stiff, swollen clit. She tried to keep still, but her hands twitched against Amélie, clutching at the loose ends of her blouse as Amélie slipped down further by slow degrees.

The spot on the crook of her neck where Amélie had sunk her teeth into was good and red when she moved on, nipping carefully up to Lena’s ear while she kept soft pressure on her clit, moving her fingers up and down every so often to get another little moan or blissful look in the mirror. Her hands were straining against the rope along with the rest of her body, trying to eke out a bit more stimulation, another flare of heavy wet heat shooting up her abdomen. The desperation gradually shifted her expression into an exquisite agony, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes while her moans came closer to strangled sobs.

“How are you, _cherie_?” Amélie asked, giving her a few firm taps with her fingers as she did.

“Please, I need…I need to come,” she finally gasped out. Her whole body was trembling, her legs barely supporting her as Amélie teased.

“You’ll come when I tell you to.” Her response was barely a whisper between soft bites on the outside of Lena’s ear and a careful, precise tightening of the hand on her throat. “You think you’ve been that good?”

“Yes…”

Amélie hummed without agreeing or disagreeing, but Lena still cried out when Amélie eased two fingers along the soft warmth past her clit, pressing just so, taunting her. She swore through sobs as Amélie pushed the first finger into her, then the second, and hooked them until she struck on a small spot she knew would work. Lena’s whole body shook when Amélie started moving her hand again in a slow back and forth, unable to decide between whimpering and crying as she watched herself go to pieces in the mirror.

“Such a pretty little thing,” Amélie said, easing up on her throat. “And all mine, isn’t that right?”

Lena nodded, but she had to know that wasn’t going to be good enough. “Say it, _mon chou_.”

“I’m yours, I’m all yours, just please let me come!”

She pretended to consider it even as her hand picked up its pace, and within a minute Lena was gasping and trembling and trying her best to keep herself upright. Her scream split through the apartment as Amélie pulled the simple knot holding her hands in place loose, and they both fell back onto the bed as the tremors worked through her body. The sobs turned back into happy moans, the bruise on her neck was splotching to a rich purple, and her newly-freed hands ran along the lines of Amélie’s face as they looked at each other and Amélie held her. She glanced at her roommate’s wrists as they came back down from their high and saw no bruising, always a good sign. “Very good, Lena,” she whispered, running a hand along her back. “Very, very good.”

“Your room is so _neat_ ,” Lena said, suddenly docile and quiet as she asked, “We can talk about this tomorrow, right?”

Amélie nodded and kissed her forehead. That would have to be enough time to sort through everything. “Tomorrow. Would you like to stay in here tonight? You can even throw your clothes all over.”

Lena was slow in shuffling off her jeans and kicking them across the room. It was too cold to sleep without clothes, and they parted briefly to shut off the movie in the other room and get ready for bed. Lena wavered in the doorway as Amélie worked her way under the covers, and only came over when she patted the empty space beside her. More than a few ideas occurred to her in light of whatever submissive streak she’d drawn out, but for the moment they just relaxed, curled up against one another, hands idly wandering over clothes among a few errant kisses.


	2. Tant que ta corps frémira sous mes mains - Widowtracer (Commission)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuing from the previous chapter/commission.

Lena generally wasn’t ever in a rush to get out of bed, especially on a cold Sunday morning, but Amélie had already slipped out of her room and without her present, the cleanliness could quickly become unnerving. She waited for a minute, slowly pulling the comforter down to acclimate herself as she would in a cold pool, before shuffling over to the side of the bed and rolling out. The carpet under her toes was warm, at least. Lena adjusted the tilted waistband of her pajama bottoms, gave herself a good yawn, and went out into the shared space. Although, she wondered whether or not Amélie’s room no longer counted as shared space, considering she hadn’t slept in her own bed in weeks.

Not that she minded.

The shower was going, and a thought occurred to her to see if Amélie wanted some company, but she was wrapped up in studying for her last exams of the semester later in the week. Lena had her own exams, not to mention another track meet at the end of the week, but she liked to think she had a slightly more Zen attitude about all of it. Of course, her grades tended to reflect that attitude as well.

A pot of coffee was nearly done brewing in the kitchen, dripping the last bit into the carafe before Lena poured herself a cup and yanked herself into the waking world. There wasn’t any space on the table in the nook that constituted their dining room, all of it having been given over to a nest of Amélie’s notes and papers and frames from old films. Lena didn’t dare disturb it, and instead went over to the couch for a few minutes before she had to go and spend the day rendering one of her final projects.

Lena was about to grab the remote and see if there was anything entertaining on—two thousand channels, _something_ had to be good—but an envelope on the coffee table grabbed her attention. Her name was written on the front in neat, tight script, and below it was a kiss print in light purple lipstick. “First fresh coffee, now this,” she said, and took one more sip before she picked up the envelope. “I’m being spoiled.”

_Mon chou,_

_I thought perhaps you could do with some incentivization once we finally have some time to ourselves on Saturday evening. If you:_

_Keep your dishes from piling up in the sink;_

_Take away at least a 90 on both of your exams;_

_Endure, oh, let’s say…ten good lashes Saturday night;_

_And win your race at your track meet,_

_I have some rewards in mind for you. –Amélie_

Lena scanned the note a few more times, and a hard knot formed under her stomach when she imagined what kind of rewards Amélie had in store. She fretted with the paper until some of the ink rubbed off on her thumb, and she went back to sipping at her coffee, huddling up in the cold until the bathroom door opened and steam spilled out.

“I hope you didn’t drink all the coffee,” Amélie said through a grumble as she adjusted the towel wrapped around her hair. She dipped down and pressed a quick kiss to Lena’s cheek. “Good morning. You should give the hot water a few minutes.”

“Oi, what’s all this?” Lena asked, motioning toward the note on the coffee table. “You’re giving me homework now, love? I’ve already got enough of that, believe me.”

Amélie didn’t answer right away and went into the kitchen with a careful cinch of her bathrobe, all too aware that Lena was watching her as she poured her own coffee. She leaned against the counter, watching her roommate from over the lip of her mug, until Lena finally got up to bring her own mug back for a second serving.

“I thought—” Amélie cut her off with one short step and set both mugs on the counter, leaving her free to hook two fingers into the top of Lena’s nightshirt and pull her closer until Amélie’s lips were brushing against the sensitive spot right beneath her ear, making her shiver— “a little motivation might do you good, _non_? Your classes are in the mornings this week, mine are in the afternoon, I wanted to give you something to focus on since we won’t see much of each other until Saturday. And this homework gets you something much better than a grade, I can promise you that.”

“Yeah, your note mentioned some rewards,” Lena said as she nudged her mug in front of the coffee machine. “Still not sure what you get out of all that, though.”

“Do I need a reason to spoil you?”

“Historically, yes.”

Amélie’s lip turned up in a grin. “Historically I haven’t spent much time making you scream your way to an orgasm, but you haven’t been complaining about that change.” Lena almost lost her grip on the carafe, and caught it only by a small miracle. “But if you insist. What do I get out of it? Dishes that don’t have primitive life growing on them, a roommate who isn’t failing any of her classes, a trophy to fill that unsightly empty spot on the shelf there…and a beautiful canvas to paint on.”

Her hand landed firmly on Lena’s rear with a small, sharp sting through the fabric of her pajama bottoms. It was a sweet little smart of pain, one that only helped tighten the little knot in her core, and she found herself backing into it rather than moving away like she always thought she would. Amélie was…well. Amélie was never shy about taking charge, and it never occurred to Lena to try and have it any other way. Wherever her roommate—girlfriend?—had gotten her dominant streak from, she wasn’t going to complain.

“You’re flattering me now,” Lena said as she pressed her legs together.

“Hardly necessary. Enjoy fiddling with your cartoons today.”

That had long since stopped getting a rise out of Lena, ever since she caught Amélie watching those same cartoons at three in the morning, teary-eyed and utterly focused on the story. Rather than rise to her taunt, she only playfully bumped their hips together when Amélie pulled her into a quick hug. “Yeah, yeah. Let me shower and I’ll get out of your hair.”

Amélie hummed in acknowledgement, then squeezed at Lena’s wrist. “This should go without saying, but no, ah, _comment dis-tu_ …stress relief, until Saturday. Understand?”

She was still speaking as casually as if she were commenting about the weather—or as she would about better weather, neither of them had anything but vitriol for the current cold snap—but Lena wasn’t sure if she would have preferred it purred in her ear. “It’s finals week,” Lena said incredulously, picking up her mug and running one nervous finger around the rim. “You’re really telling me I can’t have a go at myself when I’m under the gun to study and cut more time off my sprints? How would you even know?”

No complaints came to Lena’s mind about the last few weeks, but there still had to be limits, didn’t there? Though admittedly Amélie _was_ good about teasing her up to her limits…still. The pent-up energy might work in her favor on the track, but going up the walls while sitting in a rendering farm for the rest of the week was anything but a tempting prospect.

Amélie shrugged and started to wash her coffee cup. “I wouldn’t know. Usually you’re very quiet when you’re by yourself. And I’m not telling you to do anything, only incentivizing behavior.” She looked over her shoulder, a piercing, narrowed glance that still retained the little tells of a smile. “But I think you know I can do a much better job than your hand.”

On that point, Lena had no retort. Amélie talked a big game, sure. But she always backed it up. She mumbled something that she hoped sounded like agreement, then shuffled off to her room to pick out some clothes. She gathered up everything and hopped in the shower. It was quick.

By the time she’d toweled off and gotten herself dressed, Amélie had already retreated to the dining nook, poring over the papers and still frames spread across the table. Something light and airy was playing across the sound system. She put one long finger down to hold her place, looked up, and blew Lena a kiss as she was halfway out the door.

⁂

Lena had imagined that the biggest hurdles through the week would be her exams on Wednesday and Thursday, and then her track meet on Saturday.

Lena was _wrong_.

She was surprised, and annoyed, to find that washing dishes every day made her hands irritatingly dry. Perhaps by way of apology, a large bottle of moisturizer found its way onto the bathroom vanity on Tuesday, and a smaller tube appeared in her book bag around the same time. Amélie did her own dishes, and only her own dishes, leaving Lena wondering several times if some snack or other was worth dirtying a plate for. A loophole occurred to her, but paper plates and Styrofoam cups seemed like they would go against the spirit of their little agreement.

It only made sense, then, to prop open a textbook beside the sink and get some of her studying done at the same time. Zen attitude or not, pulling her grades up wasn’t going to happen without hitting the books. Her final project was too far along to make any serious changes, and all she could do on that score was babysit her project as it rendered, bit by agonizing bit, in the lab on campus. Her history and general theory final, on the other hand…Lena had a mind to work her way up to department head just to take that class out of the requirements for a degree.

She even took her books to school, absently writing names and dates and titles on a notepad to commit them to memory. It _would_ be nice to avoid academic probation, and after she did the math—another evil, evil subject—she saw that Amélie’s little goals would get her there. It was easy to forget sometimes what kind of brain there was in that sexy French head.

All the while, her thoughts drifted without fail to the nights they spent curled up together in Amélie’s bed, buried under thick blankets, wrapped up in each other. She liked cuddling, she did, but it seemed like Amélie was only doing it to taunt her, burying her thumbs in Lena’s waistband while she was the big spoon, kissing at the nape of her neck…and then falling asleep. All the studying for her exams on Friday was wearing on her, and Lena hardly expected a production while they were both in a crunch, but it was still an exquisite kind of torture.

The rest of her waking hours were mercifully taken up by practice, where at least she could work off her frustration productively. Or try to. It was difficult to respond to comments about seeming antsy, trying to weave around saying that she was trying to get her roommate to fuck her silly at the end of the week. She didn’t actually have any fear of losing her events, and her numbers from the rest of the season were enough to give her a comfortable lead in the rankings, but she had to focus on something, and it couldn’t be whatever the promised lashes turned out to be. A fairly good idea existed in her head.

Once, when she’d come back while Amélie was still in class, Lena had taken a look in her closet to see if there was any end to the never-ending stream of fashionable outfits. Only because she was curious, Lena told herself. After all, she’d made it through the whole semester with warm-ups, two pairs of jeans, and some band t-shirts, what did Amélie need all that for? There was, as she discovered, an end to the outfits, right where the carefully arranged collection of crops and other implements Lena was far too flustered to imagine the functions of began.

She got home late on Tuesday, late enough that Amélie was already there at the table, asleep among her notes. Lena yawned and nudged at her shoulder, bundled up under a heavy sweater. “Amélie, come on. You’ll tweak your neck sleeping like that, we should just go to sleep.”

“You ought to study,” came her muffled reply.

“I’ve read that bloody textbook three times, my brain’s fit to break if I try again. Let’s go.”

Amélie grumbled, but let Lena sling one arm over her shoulder and lead her back to her room. The heat in the building was still spotty, and they only kicked off their shoes before climbing into bed. “ _Bon nuit_ , Lena.”

“Think I might take French next semester,” she said as Amélie cuddled up against her back.

“With your accent? I shudder to think.”

Lena pouted until Amélie kissed at the side of her neck and nudged her thumbs into their usual taunting place in Lena’s waistband. Her hands were a little cold, but somehow Lena didn’t mind.

⁂

Lena’s history and theory final could be more generously described as an extended anxiety attack, despite her preparations. She limited herself to decaf coffee, braved the morning snow to get to class twenty minutes early, and had enough spare pens in her bag to write a small novel. The first question still set her on a tilt. She twirled her pen through her fingers, trying to push past an awfully persistent mental image of Amélie’s lips, before the answers started swimming back to her. Lena still didn’t finish first, or anywhere close to first, but neither was she the last one out of the room. The slowly leveling anxiety was far better than the cheerful suppression she was used to with exams, she had to admit.

Her animation final on Thursday, by the grace of whatever watched over such things, survived its trip from the rendering lab to her classroom. It even garnered some enthusiastic applause, though internally she was screaming at every dropped frame and botched bit of background she was able to pick out. She knew it was rude, but every presentation afterward had only half her attention, the rest being devoted to refreshing the university’s intranet on her phone, looking for her first grade. There was more than just her GPA riding on it, after all.

“Ninety-two? I really skated by?”

The professor looked up at her from over his glasses, but Lena only shoved her phone back in her bag and rocked happily from side to side in her seat for the rest of the class.

Her last grade wouldn’t come in until her project was thoroughly picked apart, leaving her in a difficult state on Friday. Amélie was at her own exams until the evening, and her last track meet still loomed in her mind as she bummed around their apartment. Her semester was over, ordinarily she would be curled up with a good dark beer and losing to Hana in whatever new game she’d found and subsequently mastered.

Instead she went about cleaning, surprising herself more than anything. She had to borrow most of the supplies from her neighbors since she had no idea where Amélie stored their own, and soon enough she found a good rhythm, dusting and scrubbing and making things nice and neat. It offended every concept of _home_ in her head—a home was lived in, not a display piece—but a little extra credit couldn’t hurt. She even picked up most of the clothes lying around on her bedroom floor, her own little space. The unenviable task of cleaning the bathroom was next on her list when her phone began to chirp.

_Hot Croix Buns [14:24]: One down, one to go. I hope you’ve been keeping busy._

_Speedster [14:25]: I’ve been cleaning!_

She let that sink in while going to inspect the shower. It wasn’t that bad in her opinion, maybe a bit of grime here and there, but Lena still went and got the brush.

_Hot Croix Buns [14:27]: Exam stress must be getting to me. It almost looks like you wrote that you were cleaning._

_Speedster [14:28]: I had to nick a bunch of stuff from Satya and Olivia, but I thought you might like it…needed something to do with my hands, love._

Lena attached a picture for good measure to show off her work. She decided the shower could wait and put on a pot of tea instead, some of the good stuff she was going to break into after her exams no matter how well or poorly she did. The passing grade was just a bonus.

_Hot Croix Buns [14:31]: Sois calme, mon coeur…I’m almost tempted to skip my last exam and come dirty that up with you. Keep up the good work, Lena._

That made a warmth flare in her chest. She had her tea, held her nose while she bleached most of the bathroom, and settled in on the couch when everything looked clean enough to eat off of. Amélie trudged in well past dark, noticeably massaging her writing hand, and crawled in beside Lena, wrapping tightly around her waist as they shuffled closer. She didn’t even make a comment about the cartoons they were watching.

“Thank you,” Amélie said quietly, her tired words soft against Lena’s ear.

“What’s all that for now, because I cleaned the flat?”

“I don’t know. For everything.” One arm let go of Lena’s waist to pull a blanket down over them. “You snore and smack me and roll around like a woman possessed in bed…but I feel as if I need you beside me to fall asleep now. You bounce around like a hamster and make a mess everywhere you go, and all I can do is laugh and shake my head.”

“Knew I’d grow on you eventually,” Lena said as she found Amélie’s hand again and laced the fingers together with her own.

“Oh, what have you done to me…”

⁂

She would never admit it, but Amélie almost got lost on the way to the track.

It wasn’t her fault, really. Whoever had planned out the athletic complex gave no mind to signs or even a desk where someone could ask for directions. She’d never had any reason to venture past the weight room and the pool, and so finding her way consisted of quietly following one of Lena’s teammates almost to the far end of the complex, to the stadium that already had its roof closed. Suddenly the deep red of the track ringing the field stuck out like the most obvious thing in the world.

Amélie tugged her scarf a little closer around her neck—even inside, there was still a noticeable chill in the air—and looked around for her roommate. Girlfriend? They played house, certainly, Lena’s bed went unused almost every night, and there had been more than a few enjoyable encounters between them, but she didn’t know if that qualified as a relationship. They needed to talk about it, but talking always quickly devolved into kissing and beyond.

There was a small cluster of people in blue-and-gold warmups at one end of the track, and a few of the taller figures found themselves jostled aside so Lena could free herself and jog over, surprise on her face as much as the smile. They both faltered when they were at arm’s length, unsure of how to greet each other. It was so rare for them to cross paths outside of their apartment, and before a simple nod would have sufficed. That seemed…too cordial, at least to Amélie. She took a step closer and put out one tentative hand, which Lena took as an invitation to an embrace. “Ooh, you’re freezing,” Lena said, shivering in her warmup when she eased back.

“It isn’t a quick walk here, you know. Or a warm one.”

“Yeah, that’s why turnout is usually so shite…how come you’re here, though? I didn’t think you came to these things.”

“I don’t,” Amélie said as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind Lena’s ear. “But classes are over, this is your last meet, and we have a small agreement to settle. I didn’t miss your events, did I? Which ones _are_ your events?”

Lena pointed out a structure on the field with two supports and a crossbar. “Pole vault and the four hundred meter dash, that one’s about to start. Go grab a seat, I’ll blow you a kiss when I win ‘em.”

“So confident.” Amélie squeezed her arm and let her go back to her team while she started up into the stands. She found a spot that afforded a good view of the entire track and the field inside without being too far away, one that let her watch the racers discard their warmups and take their places along the track. Lena stripped her jacket away without any preamble, but took her time to slowly shimmy her pants away before taking her place in the outermost lane in a uniform that had to have her chilled. The pale skin of her shoulders was on display, along with her arms and most of her legs, and she winked at Amélie just before the starting pistol went off.

And then she was just…gone.

Hours and hours of practice with picking out things from film stills was all that helped Amélie locate her, a vaguely blue blur out in front with a commanding lead. The usual lanky, clumsy Lena she was used to was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a singularly-focused bolt tearing down the track. Amélie’s fingers gripped hard on the cold metal bleachers at the plain, raw display of power. Lena was a little easier to see when she slowed down to take the curve, falling into a long, graceful stride as her lead shrank slightly. If it perturbed her, she didn’t show it, and when she came to the next straightaway she was gone again. It was hard to believe she was the same girl who trudged around in the morning, barely moving a muscle unless it got her closer to the coffee.

She didn’t slow down as much on the second and final curve, instead tilting her whole body toward the inner field to balance herself out until she broke past the starting line. Lena pumped the brakes and came to a brisk jog while part of the stands broke out in cheers. Amélie applauded politely while the rest of the runners came in behind her, and smiled as she caught the promised kiss Lena blew her. She beat a hasty retreat back to their team bench to put her warmups back on after that, and took a few minutes to collect herself and roll her knuckles across her thighs to work out some of the burn.

_L. Oxton [15:44]: What’d you think, luv?_  
_A. Lacroix [15:45]: Now I see where all your energy goes. You were a vision, chérie. At least during the parts where I could actually see you._

Lena looked over her shoulder at her and flashed that silly English victory sign with her first two fingers.

_L. Oxton [15:46]: Ha! You know, you never did mention what would happen once I met all your little challenges…any hints?_  
_A. Lacroix [15:46]: It will be well-deserved, I promise. Anything more might get you too flustered. Go on, I’m eager to see how well you handle a good firm pole._

She turned back again, only to see Amélie smirking. The past week couldn’t have been easy for her, and Amélie was intent on keeping her rewards out of mind until everything was said and done. Lena pouted, but she had almost no time to sulk before the field events started up.

The hammer throw, while technically impressive, wasn’t nearly as interesting as watching her roommate shuffle out of her warmups again and pick up a pole bigger than her from the rack that had been wheeled out. At least to Amélie, the sight of it was comical. A metal rod half again as tall as the woman toting it around, bouncing it in her hands to get a feel for the weight. She could only hope her snickering wouldn’t be audible on camera as she took out her phone again and waited until Lena’s run.

Finally, Lena took up her place at the starting position along a narrow length of track, facing the bars and the large blue mat on the ground. Amélie hit the record button in time to catch the playful little swish of her hips as she grasped at her pole. Her first step looked like an unsteady hop to Amélie’s untrained eye, but soon enough she was at a long, powerful stride, dipping the far end of the pole into a catch at the base of the bars. The whole thing curved so much Amélie bit at her lip, praying for it not to snap, and then Lena was up in the air, twisting and arcing her body over the crossbar. She seemed to hang in the air for a moment, a small strip of her stomach on display mid-twist while she pointed two playful finger guns at the stands, and then gravity took its hold again, dropping her onto the ground with an unceremonious and barely audible _whump_.

A spiky bob of brown hair popped out of the mat, and Lena looked intently at the crossbar for any signs of wobbling. Once the referee was confident that she hadn’t touched it, her team broke into an uproar and carried her off the field. Amélie tucked that recording away for a rainy day and drifted down through the stands, toward their team’s bench where Lena was finally put back on her feet. She was still buzzing, hands trembling as she came over to Amélie. “Can I assume from the cheering that—”

Lena grabbed the ends of Amélie’s scarf and pulled her down until their lips met, a crash of cold skin that gave way to blooming warmth. Devoid of her warmups, Lena quickly burrowed her way into Amélie’s jacket, stretching out the leather as her hands went around and up Amélie’s back. She had no mind to protest, and most of her energy went to keeping herself steady as Lena hopped up and wrapped her legs around Amélie’s waist, still peppering her with kisses.

“I really wish I didn’t have to stay,” Lena said, a little breathless and shaky when the cold caught up with her again.

“ _C’est la vie_ …rest on your laurels, I’ll go get a few things from that Chinese restaurant you like so much.”

Lena perked up again as she eased herself back down. “I do like their takeaway. But I hope that’s not one of my rewards, yeah?”

Amélie slipped off her jacket and draped it over Lena’s shoulders. It was much too long for her and hung awfully, but she couldn’t look happier if she tried. “Perish the thought, I have some standards. But come right home after this,” she said, and drew the tip of one finger up Lena’s throat and right under her chin, holding it there until she nodded obediently. “Good. Go back to your team.”

She did as she was told, and Amélie hung back for a moment to watch her, still coming down from the high of her victory, an adorably lanky little thing in a jacket that was far too big for her. A few of her teammates looked back at Amélie as she slipped out of the stadium, but she paid them no mind. “ _Je me fous du monde entier, tant que ta corps frémira sous mes mains_ …”

⁂

If she didn’t know better, Amélie could have sworn Lena was stalling.

Of course, she did know better, and simply had to sit through the one thing her roommate took her time with. Drinks were fine to wolf down, but solid food was like a ritual to her, all the more so when it was something she liked. Amélie cleared her own plate and the rest of the takeout boxes before taking her seat again across the table, steepling her fingers as she watched the oddly tolerable display. Lena was wrestling with a particularly long noodle, then went a bit red around the ears when she noticed her audience. She was still wearing Amelie's jacket, bringing the sleeves very close to some of the soy sauce more than once, but had managed to keep it clean, a small wonder.

“I’m glad to see your tongue didn’t freeze in all that cold,” she said with affected casualness, and Lena sputtered on the noodle. “Something the matter?”

“You shouldn’t be allowed to say stuff like that in your sexy voice, it’s not fair,” Lena mumbled.

Amélie chuckled, a low, rich sound from the back of her throat, which didn’t seem to help matters. “You poor smitten thing…have you had your fill?” she asked, with a small wave to her nearly empty plate.

Lena set her fork down, unwilling to do more than push around the last bits of rice. “So,” she started, words suddenly caught in her throat. Amélie smiled.

“So.”

She got slowly out of her chair, fixed one of the cuffs of her sweater, and offered Lena a hand. Her fingers still had a little duck sauce on them, but that was going to get fixed anyway. Amélie pulled her close, resting her free hand over the base of Lena’s throat, and ran her lips along the sensitive ridge of her ear. “I hope you didn’t make any other plans for tonight, _mon chou_.”

“Of course not…”

“Go wash up, brush your teeth, get the lo mein off your breath. But keep your clothes. And take your time, I need a bit of setup.”

Lena raised one inquisitive eyebrow, but Amélie only sent her on her way with a quick peck on the lips. Once she disappeared into the bathroom, Amélie returned to her own room and began rummaging through her closet, pulling off her sweater as she did.

Her scalp stung a little as she finished putting her hair up in a single high, tight ponytail, but she wasn’t going to dispute the stark visual effect looking back at her in the mirror. Amélie smirked and tugged a bit of spandex into its proper place when a soft knock came through the door. “Ah, all ready in there, love?”

She went over and opened the door herself, if only to get the full effect of Lena’s reaction. What had sounded like nervousness fall promptly to speechlessness, and Lena couldn’t seem to help letting her eyes wander. Amélie had to fight against the tightness of the fabric to push her chest out, but the effect was well worth it. Lena traced the edge of her outfit, from the collarbone to the harsh plunge almost down to her navel, and followed step by step as Amélie eased backward into her room. “Well?”

“Never seen this outfit,” Lena said, running the tips of two fingers down the open middle and to her legs, also closed in with light purple fabric like her torso. “Does this even qualify as a neckline anymore?”

“I think you’d look so lovely with a gag in that little mouth of yours, _mon chou_ …but I thought we’d start slowly, since you’ve been so good this week,” Amélie said, gently toying with Lena’s hair before she shrugged Lena out of her jacket and sat her on the edge of the bed. She popped the first button on Lena’s shirt and then the second, leaving a trail of light kisses down the middle of her chest until she came to the button on her jeans. Lena was looking down to watch her, lower lip pressed between her teeth and hands gripping at the comforter. “Such a pretty girl.”

Lena lifted herself up slightly to let Amélie tug off her jeans. She kissed Lena’s thighs, lavishing attention on the sore muscles there, before hooking two fingers into the waistband of her panties and easing them away. She wasn’t going to tease the poor girl too much.

Not yet, anyway.

An appreciative shudder answered her when Amélie pressed her lips to Lena’s clit, and the legs around her head tightened ever so slightly. “And eager, too,” she whispered in between long, slow strokes of her tongue. Lena whined when she moved lower, exploring the soft pink folds between her legs, raking her fingers over Lena’s stomach, skirting around the swells of her breasts. Service topping wasn’t her usual thing, but there were always exceptions to be made. Lena’s taste wasn’t overly sweet, tinged with some bitterness, thin. How apropos, she thought. Amélie pressed a little deeper, letting her tongue explore between the folds while she watched Lena’s expression twist between surprise and pleasure, her chest rising and falling at an uneven kilter.

Her lips and chin were soaked by the time she moved back up, each quick lash of her tongue drawing out a gasp or a moan. Lena’s hips began to roll in time with the pressure Amélie applied, rocking forward when Amélie’s tongue pressed down on her clit, easing away for breathing room when she withdrew. Finally a raw, strangled cry broke through, and Lena’s whole body relaxed. Amélie rode out the shivers, planting a few final kisses as a parting shot, and then leaned back to admire her handiwork. Lena had her legs splayed out and shaking, toes grinding into the carpet beneath them, while she struggled to stay upright.

“Now that you’re relaxed,” Amélie said, pushing Lena lightly onto the bed and rolling her onto her stomach, “we can have some fun.”

“These the lashes you had me dreading?” Lena asked, half her face buried in the comforter as she watched Amélie go to her closet with hazy eyes. “Hiding a whip in there or something?”

Amélie pushed her jackets aside so she could thumb through the more exciting part of her wardrobe. “I would need much more space for a whip,” she said matter-of-factly, and then, when Lena’s only reaction was silence, “and I don’t have one anymore. Besides, you need to start smaller. Ah…here we are.”

The end of the crop she picked out was soft leather with a wide surface, broad distribution without too much of a sting. Good for beginners. Lena’s hips started swishing from side to side as Amélie rolled the leather under her fingers to loosen it a bit, maybe more than strictly necessary, but Lena seemed to be enjoying the show. “What was it I said, five lashes?”

“Ten.”

“Good girl. This shouldn’t be more than a little sting. Safeword?”

“ _Rouge_ ,” Lena said, botching the pronunciation.

Amélie hummed in acknowledgement and padded over to the bed, laying the end of the crop gently on the small of Lena’s back. She stiffened at first, but relaxed when she adjusted to the coolness and texture of the leather sliding over her skin, down to the slight upward swell of her rear. “Count out for me,” she said as she picked the crop up and swatted it back down.

“Ah! One,” Lena said, pressing her legs together.

She took the first three well, and so Amélie experimented with a bit more force. Her free hand started drifting along her bodysuit with each sweet little sound Lena made that stoked a fire in her, taking up between her own legs as she watched her girlfriend twist and moan at her movements.

“Halfway through,” Amélie said quietly as she rested the crop between two little strips of reddened skin. “Lena? _Ça va_?”

A shaky thumbs-up answered her. “Good. Keep counting.”

“Six…ahh, seven…”

When the crop came down for the tenth time with a sharp little _smack_ , Amélie held it there, waiting for Lena to squeak out “Ten,” and then set it down, swooping in instead with a soft, slow hand. Lena gasped and sputtered, and the one eye Amélie could see was a little moist, but she was still smiling.

“ _Bonne fille_ ,” Amélie said, and placed a long kiss between Lena’s shoulder blades. There were a few beautifully red welt lines across her rear, enough to leave a flash of soreness for a day or so but no more. They could work up from that. “ _Très bonne fille_. Very good girl.”

“So—so what’s the reward for that?” Lena asked in a shaky voice.

“Well, I could do all the dishes until the next semester starts, or…” Amélie slipped back over to her closet and had to look around for a moment until she produced a mess of durable straps that all circled back to a harness. “Or we could keep going.”

Lena’s back arched as her gaze traced down the heavy black shaft affixed to the harness. “Quite the theme today, yeah?”

“You make such cute noises when you come, it’s hard to want to stop,” Amélie said, untangling the straps as she returned to the bed. The neoprene of her outfit around her hips gave her some more traction as she looped the straps around her waist and her legs, clicking it into place with a satisfying sound that cued Lena to part her legs ever so slightly. She rolled a condom from her nightstand onto the shaft and climbed onto the bed, over Lena, making her hiss when she dragged it over Lena’s sore rear. A foot arching up told her the teasing had gone on plenty, and Amélie gently pushed into her. Lena moaned, she gripped at the pillows and sheets around her, her hips twisted and shook as the texture on the shaft hit upon every sensitive spot at once. “Too much?” she asked. Lena shook her head.

Amélie started slowly, rocking back and forth while Lena relaxed on her stomach and pushed back to meet her instrokes, until she put her hands on Lena’s hips and pulled her up onto all fours. Each roughening push bumped back against Amélie, a much more present sensation compared to seeing Lena enjoying herself, and soon the resistance was coiling pressure in her, rewarding her rhythm as much as Lena’s satisfied whimpers.

Little jolts raced through her arms and legs, her breathing turned shallow, and Lena screamed into the pillow under her. Her whole body shuddered violently, and the cascade of small shocks unraveled her as well. All the pressure burst out from under her, costing some strength in her legs as heavy waves of pleasure rocked over her and tossed her about. She fell back from Lena, slipping out of her with a sharp gasp from the girl on the bed, quickly buried under exhausted laughter and contented sighs. “You’re not bad with that thing, you know.”

“And I don’t even fall asleep afterwards,” Amélie said as she unbuckled the harness and tossed it aside. She leaned back down until she was flush with Lena’s back, tugging her down into the comforter alongside her. “I can’t say I don’t see the appeal, though.”

Lena hooked one leg back, setting it over Amélie’s to keep her in place as she cuddled into her. She threaded their fingers together and held Amélie’s hand in front of her, running her thumb over the palm while soft kisses dotted her neck. “Way I count it, that’s three rewards, if you count the getup,” Lena said as an aftershock shivered through her body. “And I definitely do. Can I still get the dishes done?”

“Here I was, thinking I convinced you cleaning was its own reward.” Amélie unlaced their fingers and let one finger glide over Lena’s collarbones, curving and dipping with the ridges. “I had a mind to tie you up properly and tease one last scream out of you, but if you _really_ want the French maid routine…”

“No, no! Tie me up!”

“As I thought. Relax, I need a few moments to get the right length of cord.”

Relaxing in bed was one thing Lena was always ready to do. She sprawled out in the space Amélie left when she got up and went to her dresser, humming to herself as she pulled out some durable cord one forearm’s length at a time, winding it from her hand to her elbow with the occasional glance back at Lena. A full production probably wasn’t necessary, the rest of the night was just a bonus, but half-measures were worse than nothing at all. “Sit up, put your arms behind your back where they’re comfortable and you can hold your ankles.”

Lena did so, rolling her shoulders a bit until she found a spot she could hold easily. Amélie sat behind her, admiring the firm muscle of her back, and slowly wound the cord around her wrists and ankles. It was a nice challenge, keeping it loose enough while making it so the very flexible Lena couldn’t slip out if she were so inclined. Amélie worked an easy release into the knot and held the end—she had, as always, overestimated—while she shuffled to the other side of the bed and Lena gave the restraints a good tug. “How come you like tying me up so much?” she asked.

“You have things you enjoy…I have things I enjoy.” Amélie glided her hand along Lena’s thigh, tauntingly upward until she could feel the heat coming off her. “And let’s face it, I’m good at it.”

“No argument— _ah_ …”

Her clit was already sore and stiff when Amélie started making slow circles with her first finger, not to mention soaked. She smirked. Lena was still too deep in her arousal to claim any pretense, and she shamelessly followed the flits of Amélie’s hand, broke into a broad smile when one finger slid into her, then two. Her throat begged for attention, and Lena pitched her head back for better purchase. Soon there was a small trail of reds and purples up and down her neck, enough to make a scarf a good idea. The heel of Amélie’s palm eased against Lena’s clit while her fingers curled forward, sending her chest into a frantic rise and fall, taunting, tempting. She swept down on one firm pink nipple and eased her tongue around the edge, drawing out another moan.

Lena strained against the cord, helpless to hurry things along when Amélie slowed the rock of her hand, and she tried to buck her hips instead. Amélie only smirked and moved in concert with her, denying her the stimulation without retreating. “I’m surprised you lasted this long,” she said, rolling her thumb around Lena’s clit. “You must be fit to bursting, _non_?”

“Amélie…”

She picked up her pace again, took Lena up to the edge once more, and calmed down, watching her expression waver between joy and agony, watching her strain and shudder and try to keep from tearing up. “Amélie, please,” she begged, and with such a lovely raw brokenness to her voice, Amélie could hardly resist. She let her rhythm reach its peak, and Lena did too shortly after. Her third orgasm wracked her body more than her voice, giving Lena tremors rather than another rewarding scream, and she slumped into her girlfriend with tears streaming down her face. Amélie deftly pulled the knots loose, tossed the cord aside, and wrapped her arms around Lena, holding her, letting her cry through it.

“That’s it,” Amélie said, stroking along the middle of her back as she shuddered. “Let it out…you did so well, _chérie_. I’m proud of you.”

It was a few minutes before Lena’s breathing leveled out and she looked up at Amélie with her big brown eyes. They were still a little red, and Amélie kissed away the rest of her tears. “Think you knocked out my legs for a week with that last one,” she whispered with half a smile.

“I suppose you’ll just have to stay in bed with me, then.”

Lena’s hands wrapped around her waist and pulled her down on the bed, among the sheets where they could curl up against each other, trading kisses and light, gentle touches. “Suppose I will,” Lena said, and nuzzled closer.


	3. Attending the Resident (Mercymaker)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mercymaker hospital AU. Surgical resident Doctor Lacroix seems to come in very often with unexplained wounds, and as her attending surgeon, Doctor Ziegler's curiosity is piqued.

According to her watch, the sun had long since set outside, and Doctor Angela Ziegler huffed a little under her mask at having gone another cold, wintry day without seeing the sun at all. In before dawn, out after sunset again—at an office job it would have galled her, but spending the day cooped up inside an operating theater was slightly more fulfilling, in her estimation. Still, it’d be nice to see daylight again, she thought.

She sat on an empty, overturned crash cart, twiddling her thumbs as she watched her patient’s vitals on the monitor. Fulfilling or not, her eyelids were growing heavy, and the thought of getting something to eat was all that kept her going rather than curling up on the floor for a few minutes of sleep.

It was another half-hour after closing her incisions before she felt comfortable discharging her patient, checking his blood pressure over and over to make sure the anesthesia hadn’t been excessive. Once she’d changed, she followed the gurney to the recovery wing on trudging feet, with even her fumes running on fumes. Hospital food had ruined her palate, and even the bland smells that lingered after dinner were enough to make her mouth water. Once he was set up in recovery, Angela ducked into the waiting room, but the boy’s family was conspicuously absent. She sighed and left a note in case they had simply gone for dinner before returning to recovery and taking up a seat in his room.

“That was easily eleven hours, aren’t you exhausted?” one of the nurses asked as she checked the intravenous lines. Satya fiddled with one until a tiny kink sprung out of place, letting the saline drip proceed unimpeded.

“Nothing easy about it,” Angela said, resting one cheek in her hand as she watched her patient’s vitals. “I don’t want him to wake up alone.”

“We’re right outside, you need sleep and some food.”

At that, her stomach growled in agreement, and Angela wasn’t in the habit of fighting her own body. If she was needed, it wouldn’t do to have her hands shaking from low blood sugar. Angela reluctantly got up and left her patient to the recovery nurses while she started for the main building.

The path from the surgical annex took her through an elevated walkway, and she stopped to look out over the darkened city. Bern was still alive with bright pinpricks from buildings and streetlights, nestled against the mountains to the east, but clearly settling for the evening. She was almost enjoying it until blue sirens on the road approaching the hospital yanked her back to reality. Only one more day, she told herself. Only one more day and she could settle in for a few blessed days off. That thought helped sustain her as she continued toward the main building. She would have time to do all the laundry that had piled up, finish her books, actually _clean_ …a younger her might have balked at the thought of getting so excited over little domestic chores, but she knew how vanishingly rare the free time they represented had become.

Angela was about to turn off from the intake wing to the cafeteria when her pager began buzzing angrily. She let go of a long breath, unclipped it from her belt to check the message, and turned on her heel. “ _Endet es überhaupt_ …?”

She hurried to the emergency department, expecting the worst from the ambulance she had seen before, but none of the nurses or other doctors were scrambling. Apart from some frantic, muffled conversation and the obvious discomfort writ large on some faces, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Angela stopped at the nurses’ station, looking longingly at the bag of chips being picked at behind the counter, before she shook her head clear. “You paged me, Hana?”

Nurse Song nodded and pulled out a copy of a fresh chart for a patient in the wing. “Doctor Amari caught one of the patients from the pileup on the A1—”

“There was a pileup?”

“Seven cars or so,” Hana said, in that dispassionate way that arose from seeing the results of too many car accidents. “Oh, that’s right, you were in surgery. Anyway, her patient’s right hand is a mess from an impact, so she called for a consult to see about repairing the metacarpus. I think she meant to get you, but Doctor Lacroix answered instead, and, well.”

Hana motioned to the door behind which seemed to be the source of the noise, and Angela bit down on her tongue. She was probably the best orthopedic surgical resident and had the stats to prove it, though her bedside manner was somewhat…lacking, if not absent entirely. There was a place for efficiency in surgery, to be sure, but Doctor Amélie Lacroix bordered on ruthlessness when she hadn’t gone right over the line. Angela had stopped the _cold-blooded_ jokes among the staff, out of professionalism rather than impropriety, even if they seemed more and more fitting as time went on. “I’ll handle it,” she said. Angela went to the door, took a moment to prepare herself, and then slipped inside.

Doctor Lacroix, to Angela’s utter non-surprise, wasn’t the one contributing to the animated conversation in the room. She had her hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket, eyes glazed over from complete disengagement, while Doctor Amari tried to calm her patient and keep him from moving his right arm while it was still in a sling.

“Mr. Morrison, you can’t flail like that, you’ll worsen the fractures,” Fareeha was saying, but her patient, an older gentleman with plenty of bandages to match his shock of white hair, was having none of it. He only stopped when Angela cleared her throat to announce her presence, and even then he was still clearly agitated. She plucked the chart from the end of his bed and looked it over.

“Jack, is it? I’m Doctor Ziegler, head of orthopedic surgery. What seems to be the trouble?”

“That one—” He jabbed an accusatory finger from his functional hand toward Doctor Lacroix— “said she wanted to amputate my hand!”

Amélie shrugged and jerked her head toward Fareeha. “She asked me to explain his options to him.”

“For _repair_ , not _removal_ ,” Doctor Amari said, exasperation already thick in her voice. “I thought that was implied.”

Angela glanced over the patient’s chart, more for effect than anything, throwing out the occasional _hmm_ or nodding mysteriously to make it look like she was carefully scanning for information she’d gotten from her first glance. “Well, let me assure you that if amputation was necessary, we would have done it already. As you can see, you still have your hand. It looks like you’ll need some minor surgery to realign your metacarpus and seat the tendons properly before a few months of physical therapy. I’ll see to this myself tomorrow, it shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”

Doctor Amari mouthed a _thank you_ as she sighed in relief. Her explanation seemed to assuage him, and he settled into a manageable grumbling while Angela put his chart back. “Doctor Lacroix, a moment, if you please? Outside?”

Hands still tucked comfortably into her pockets, Amélie followed her from the room and still looked supremely bored as Angela turned to face her. “Is there some reason you suggested amputation for such a minor issue? That was irresponsible, bordering on unethical.”

“He asked what would have the shortest recovery period,” Amélie said flatly. “The answer was amputation. Two weeks before fitting for prosthetic and discharge. No physical therapy.”

“No hand, either. We have to try to fix problems before removing them, you know that. Your schedule is clear tomorrow, you’ll assist me with his metacarpus repair.”

Amélie’s reply was little more than an acknowledging grunt. When she took one hand from its pocket to scratch at her collar, Angela couldn’t help but notice the slight tinge of discoloration on her knuckles. It wasn’t anything unusual, operating rooms were full of nerve-wracked people and some clumsiness after holding down nerves was to be expected, but Amélie’s scrapes and bruises weren’t commensurate with her work, in Angela’s opinion. Neither did they seem to be in the right places: a splotch of bruising on the back or side of her neck, a small cut across the flash of exposed hip when her scrubs would ride up…Angela swallowed hard. It was professional concern, she told herself. Angela was her attending, after all. “Your hand is all bruised.”

She looked at her knuckles, frowned, and quickly tucked her hand back into her pocket. “It won’t interfere with the surgery tomorrow.”

“That isn’t what I’m cocnerned about,” Angela said, and grabbed at her sleeve to pull her hand back out. Amélie blinked in surprise, but said nothing as Angela looked over her knuckles and the rest of her skin. Her hand was ice cold, rough in some places from constantly washing her hands, but still soft overall. “Is everything all right? At home, I mean.”

“I live alone.”

“Do you have a partner?” she asked. There hadn’t been any mention of a marriage in her employee file when she arrived, and she had no rings on her fingers, but that didn’t rule out something more casual.

“Are you trying to find out if I’m being abused?”

“I was trying to ask around it…”

Amélie pulled her hand back and planted it on her hip as she cocked an eyebrow. On display as she was, Angela couldn’t help looking a bit longer than professional concern would dictate. The infinitely bored look in them aside, her icy blue eyes were piercing, calculating, unwelcoming. Her hair was dyed a darker shade of blue, almost black when it was bundled up in the simple ponytail that trailed down her back, and her dark skin from her Algerian side stood in contrast to them both. She straddled the line between sizes, and the green surgical scrubs under her coat always seemed to hug the solid curves of her body. At the end of her almost criminally long legs, one foot tapped in a slow, precise rhythm.

“I can take care of myself, _Docteur_ Ziegler.”

“Would you really tell me if you couldn’t?”

“No,” she admitted with a shrug. “I answer to you in this hospital, not elsewhere. Was there anything else?”

Angela shook her head, and Amélie turned to leave before looking back over her shoulder. “You’re mydriatic. Eat something.”

It wasn’t framed as a suggestion, more a directive, though even as her superior Angela felt compelled to listen to her. She blinked a few times before finally heading for the cafeteria. But, she remembered with a groan, she couldn’t. Not yet. Instead Angela shuffled back to the nurses’ station. It was probably better that no one was eating anything anymore, lest she snatch it for herself and apologize after the fact. “Nurse Song, could you please schedule Mr. Morrison for operating room one tomorrow at ten o’clock? Doctor Lacroix and I will be handling his metacarpus.”

Hana typed away on her computer, which had the unfortunate effect of reminding Angela that she still had to compose and file a report on the day’s surgery. “Did she really want to lop off his hand? He was yelling pretty loudly before we upped his morphine.”

“I’ll thank you not to say such things about my staff,” Angela mumbled as she pinched the bridge of her nose to fend off the beginnings of a headache. “Doctor Lacroix has a…different mindset. I don’t envy the kind of decisions she had to make as a combat medic, or the lingering effects it must have on her.”

“Sorry.”

Back in her office, one slightly-too-large meal and surgical report later, Angela sighed and leaned back in her chair. Even with some food in her, her body was far too overtaxed to get herself to the train station, let alone stay alert enough to take it to her stop and walk to her apartment. Another overnight, then. She half-walked, half-stumbled to the couch on the other side of her office and pulled her thin blanket down over her body. The couch wasn’t quite long enough for her, and she had to curl up slightly so that her feet weren’t hanging over the edge, but she had long since learned to sleep anywhere she could.

Finally she switched her pager off and turned on her side to get some semblance of comfort. The low, steady pulse of heart rate monitors and the smell of formaldehyde were more soothing than they had any right to be, and she was ready to sleep until her thoughts turned back to her charge. Doctor Lacroix was…not obstinate, not really. She followed orders, and she covered shifts without complaint on the rare occasions when the other residents would work up the courage to ask her. And there was no doubting her technical aptitude. But she was cold and detached toward her patients and her colleagues, even more than the job required. Knowing her file, Angela wasn’t sure what to make of the cuts and bruises. None of her guesses were pleasant, but they could wait. Doctor Ziegler nestled her head into her pillow and left the matter for the next day.

⁂

Rather than let her potentially interfere with the patient’s mental state and his anesthesia, Angela had asked Doctor Lacroix to remain in the changing room until he was well and truly under. She had strolled in after that, still utterly uninterested in her surroundings, and took up her supporting position beside Doctor Ziegler.

It was all rather routine, in Angela’s opinion. They identified and repaired the damaged tendons, set the third metacarpal where it was supposed to be, and closed up the hand in under three hours. Not once did Doctor Lacroix make another crack about removing his hand, but merely provided tools and observations when she was asked. Otherwise she only watched and made sure the retractor maintained good purchase on the skin.

“I think that should be everything,” Angela said with one more check of the adhesive bandages she had laid over her incision. “The elbow fractures will heal over the course of his physical therapy. Let’s get him off the anesthesia and over to recovery. Good work, everyone.”

The anesthesiologist gave her the thumbs-up, and Angela’s heart skipped as she went into the changing room. If nothing catastrophic happened in the next few hours, then she was off for four whole days, ninety-six hours of freedom, even a Shabbat she wouldn’t be stuck working through. Her mind practically spun with the possibilities, and she prayed that any disasters in the next few hours not involve orthopedic issues.

Doctor Lacroix came in after her, peeling off her face mask and cap before settling in on the bench in front of the lockers. She sighed in quiet relief after all that time on her feet, and Angela looked over her shoulder as she washed her hands. “Thank you for your help today, Doctor Lacroix.”

“It’s my job. I don’t need any thanks.”

“Still. I think it’ll ultimately be much more productive than…amputating…”

Angela felt her throat go dry when Amélie pulled off the top half of her scrubs before getting a clean pair from her locker, but not for the right reasons. She couldn’t even focus on the spindly black widow tattoo that took up most of her back. There was a large, splotching purple bruise along her right side, stretching from her waistband and up to the strap of her bra. It quickly disappeared under her green scrubs, but Angela wasn’t going to overlook it. Something that large couldn’t have been accidental, and if the discomfort from it affected her ability to work, then patients could get hurt.

“What happened on your side?” Angela asked, turning around and taking a few steps toward the lockers.

Amélie still had her back to Angela, pulling out the pins that had allowed her to put her hair in a bun under her cap. A sheet of dark blue spilled over her shoulders and back before she wound it through a hair tie a few times. “I fell.”

“What, onto fists? Audacity isn’t going to get you out of any questions. Look at me, please.”

She turned, hands shoved into her pockets once more, and gazed back at Angela. All her boredom aside, Amélie’s eyes were intense, calculating, seemingly plucking details from everything she saw. “Who’s doing this to you?”

Amélie’s mouth flattened into a grimace, staring right back at Angela as she waited for a response. When Amélie said nothing, Angela frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “If you’re not going to tell me, then I’ll assume you’re doing it to yourself. And if that’s the case, then you’re off rotations until psych tells me you’re not a danger to yourself or your patients. Doctor Oxton will handle your shifts.”

“You can’t do that,” Amélie said through a hiss. She took a step toward Angela, who edged back in turn. Doctor Lacroix was only a hair taller than her, but projected quite the presence all the same. Then, in a smaller voice as her gaze broke away, she said, “You can’t.”

“I can. And I will, if you don’t tell me who’s doing this to you. Half of your right side is contused, it’s going to impact your ability to do your job. Take off your shirt.”

“Rather forward,” Amélie muttered, but obediently pulled her scrubs up over her head and tossed them aside. Someone had once gotten it out of her that she used to be a dancer, and she looked the part, all lithe, smooth muscle from her collarbones to the wings of her hips. Angela chewed on her tongue as she looked over Amélie’s side, at the mess of discoloration across her ribs. Impact trauma, doubtless, and recent. Slowly, Angela pressed two fingers to the center of the bruise, and Amélie winced in the most minute way. So much damage was going to be a problem, sooner or later. She drew her hand back from the cool, firm skin.

“You can report to psych this evening,” Angela said, and turned to leave. She could feel Amélie’s gaze on her, sending a flush through the back of her neck that lasted until she reached the door.

“Wait.”

She glanced back, one hand on the door, to see Amélie pulling on her scrubs. “I’ll show you. Our shifts end at the same time, come with me afterward.”

Angela frowned. Doctor Lacroix _wasn’t_ conventional, and she liked that about her, but cutting into her valuable free time to show her something rather than just tell her outright? Unless it was simply a ploy to keep her busy long enough to make it impossible to hand her rotations off to someone else…no, Angela didn’t think it was that. Amélie was cold, but not a sociopath.

“Fine. But I _will_ take you off the schedule and put you on consult duty if I don’t see a good reason for all these injuries, or if you get one that keeps you from doing your job.”

Doctor Lacroix strolled up to her, once again uninterested in the world around her with the matter settled, until they were within arm’s length. Something like a grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. Her voice was low, languorous, laced with more emotion than Angela had ever heard from her. “ _Ensuite, c’est un date_.”

⁂

The urge to grumble was strong as the train’s doors closed at her usual stop. Angela had to override the reflexive urge to get up and walk out, instead remaining in her seat across from Amélie. Doctor Lacroix had her cheek balanced precariously in her palm, in the half-alert kind of sleep one had to adopt in an on-call room, grasping at whatever scraps of rest were available while remaining attuned to the outside world. It was a more peaceful look than her usual cool indifference, with her brow knitting up slightly and her lips parting the tiniest bit. Almost cute—no, very much cute, Angela thought.

Still, her concern was simmering right under the surface. Although her focus had been on the great big mess of a bruise on Amélie’s side, there in the train it was easy to see that her knuckles had worsened since the day before. The healed-over remains of a cut below one ear worried her, too.

“Stop staring at me.”

Angela started in her seat and looked pointedly out the window as Amélie opened her eyes. “You’ll have to forgive my curiosity,” she said as her gaze slowly settled once more on her resident. “These are more than the usual cuts and scrapes I see on the people I train.”

Doctor Lacroix didn’t answer and instead glanced up at the screen displaying the next few stops. At the second-to-last station, she stood abruptly and went to one of the doors, Angela following close behind her. The train slowed to a stop, and Amélie didn’t look over her shoulder to make sure she was still there before disembarking.

It wasn’t the kind of place Angela would go herself without a very good reason, an old industrial neighborhood where most of the buildings had been left to rot. Many of the streetlights flickered or were broken entirely, and most of the handful of cars parked on the street outside the station were so old that they still had wheels. Amélie led her out of the station, along what appeared to be the area’s main road, until she turned down an alleyway that opened onto a courtyard surrounded by tall, abandoned buildings. With the sun long since set, the only light was the flickering incandescence scattered around the courtyard and concentrated at a pair of double doors, around which a few people were standing. Angela frowned and quickened her pace to stay close to Amélie.

“ _Nerveux, Docteur_?”

“This isn’t the most welcoming atmosphere,” Angela said indignantly.

The inside of the building was heavy with the stench of sweat and blood, to say nothing of the low din of constant yelling and the crush of bodies pressing in from all sides. Amélie handed her purse to Angela and directed her to a set of seats facing a roughly circular arena. Her stomach tightened. “Fighting? You have to be kidding me. How do we even have a fighting ring in Bern?”

“Rings, plural. Now go sit down and don’t get in my way.”

Amélie disappeared into a side room, and Angela reluctantly took a seat in the stands. Whatever exhaustion she had been looking forward to sleeping off was long gone, replaced by adrenaline that coursed uncomfortably through her as she took a closer look at the ring. To judge by the streaks of red on the white floor, it hadn’t been cleaned recently. Or it _had_ been, but its occupants had dirtied it again. Neither option was very comforting. Rolling across that with an open wound…perhaps her time off was going to get cut short before it even started.

It was a few minutes before Amélie walked back out, to no shortage of cheers and appreciative whistles. The sweater and jeans she’d been wearing when they left the hospital were gone, replaced by black shorts and a matching sports bra and gloves. Worry aside, she couldn’t help noticing that Amélie had the legs to match her dancer’s torso. Angela’s grip tightened around the strap of her purse, and she bit down on her lip when Amélie turned back to her and smirked.

There was an announcer blaring something over a barely-functioning speaker, and the crowd on the other side of the ring parted to let in her opponent. Angela blanched. A great big mountain of a woman swaggered in, Russian to look at her, sporting a shock of bright pink hair and arms thick enough to be tree trunks. If Amélie wasn’t intimidated, Angela thought, then she should have been. Being built for dancing, thin and lithe and graceful, wasn’t going to help if her opponent could simply knock her into next week.

A bell rang, and Angela’s heart leapt into her throat as they began.

The first strike was Amélie’s after she had leapt forward, a spinning kick to her opponent’s hip that failed to have any effect at all. She ducked back in time to avoid a fist easily as large as her face coming at her, but only just. The few loose strands of hair she hadn’t caught in her tight bun blew like a breeze had ghosted past them. Amélie hopped from foot to foot as she widened the gap between them, ever so slightly outpacing the Russian’s advance.

For the way she was so clearly physically overmatched, Amélie’s face betrayed no concern or fear when she turned enough for Angela to see. Quite the opposite, to Angela’s surprise. Amélie was actually smiling. Not a smirk or a snide upturn of her lip, but a real grin that would have shown teeth if not for her mouth guard. All the tension coiled around her heart aside, Angela thought that was nice.

Her opponent threw another punch when they were at arm’s length again, but it was too heavily telegraphed. Amélie spun on the ball of one foot with a few centimeters left between them, if that. With a fresh opening and momentum carrying her, Amélie crashed her elbow into the Russian’s side, directly below her ribs. She stumbled back, grasping at what was sure to be a large bruise over her liver, and Angela raised an eyebrow. A surgeon with experience as a combat medic would be more than capable of precision strikes if she couldn’t match her opponent’s physicality. Clever, if dangerous. All her knowledge of pressure points and vulnerable spots on the body wouldn’t stop a fist to her jaw.

Rather than press her attack, Amélie dipped away again, bowing and extending her hand once she was safely out of reach, as if she were leading a twisted ballet duet. It only served to infuriate her opponent, who charged and sent the onlookers behind Amélie scattering. She held her ground for a moment, then another, and Angela was ready to scream when she stepped swiftly left and delivered another spinning kick. Rather than taking Amélie with her, the Russian fell to all fours as she tried to catch her breath.

“Satisfied yet, _ma chérie_?”

Another taunt. Angela frowned. Turnabout could be as simple as one lucky strike, and all her little challenges would come back to bite her then. Her opponent spat back something in Russian before taking up a different stance, with a firmer guard around her face and her legs a bit closer together. The change wasn’t lost on Amélie, who also put up a firmer guard and kept her distance until another opening presented itself.

Everything quickly changed to a much more dangerous dance after that. Amélie and her opponent prowled around one another like wolves waiting for their prey to break, looking for openings while trying to present their own feints. It was somehow, in Angela’s opinion, even worse than watching them go at each other. That was raw and quick, at least. Their calculating glowers, by contrast, were full of careful, murderous intent. A punch into empty air, a kick that barely connected…their game became more baiting than fighting, and the crowd was baying by the time they attacked in earnest once more, again and again until they pushed back to catch their breath before doing it all over again.

Amélie left her guard open a bit too long, and had to twirl out of the way of a powerful, sudden punch. She wasn’t fast enough, and the side of her opponent’s glove raked across her back. Angela threw her hand over her mouth as Amélie’s spider tattoo split above and below her bra, divided by a thin line of bright red blood. Some parts of the crowd cheered, some gasped, and it was all she could do to stay in her seat when Amélie grunted in pain. Rather than collapse, though, she swung her arm up and in a wide arc, where her elbow contacted her opponent’s jaw and sent her reeling. Amélie didn’t bother looking as the Russian stumbled, one hand still curled into a fist, and finally collapsed.

The crowd erupted around Angela, satisfied with the spectacle, but she couldn’t even be bothered to feel disgusted. She was up and on her feet before Amélie even left the ring, pacing at the edge of the path while a pair of medics rushed in. Amélie ignored her as she walked through the crowd, her mouth twisted into a pained frown as she walked by and Angela could see the blood beginning to drip down her back. She wasn’t going to be ignored totally, and she followed along as they went into a changing room.

“Amélie—”

“Save your moralizing, _Docteur_ Ziegler,” she said, and took a roll of gauze from her locker. Amélie stretched once to get a good idea of the exact position of the cut, then began unwinding the roll.

“Then at least let me do that. It should be stitched, really.”

“I don’t have stitches. And this is hardly a sanitary environment.” She waved a hand over the changing room, the rust on the lockers and the spots of blood on the bench and floor. A fair point and well made, Angela would concede. “If you’re so determined not to go off shift, you can clean it up later, but for now the bandage, _Docteur_.”

“Oh! Yes, of course. I’ll clean and dress this properly once we get out of this…colorful establishment. Please hold still.”

It was strange, simply laying a bandage over a wound without so much as disinfecting it first, but her supplies were at home and the quick work would hold for a few hours. She wound the gauze diagonally down Amélie’s back, from her right shoulder to her left hip, the white material staining red as she pressed it to the skin there. Amélie trembled and took the roll to bring it back up to her shoulder for another pass. Closer up, older injuries were more apparent, cuts and faded bruises she hadn’t noticed earlier at the hospital. To say nothing of the firm tone of her back, very much on display as she tensed and flexed. The tips of two of her fingers brushed over a healed cut near the base of Amélie’s tattoo, and she stiffened.

“Why do you do this to yourself?”

The question hung in the air for a moment, and Amélie seemed in no rush to answer her. Instead she leaned forward slightly, only to whimper when her back curved and pressed further against the gauze. Angela was no psychologist, she didn’t ever need her patients to open up to her and she would have distanced herself if they did, but she needed to know. Amélie flinched when Angela put one hand on her shoulder, looked down at the fingers pressing lightly on her skin, and chuckled.

“Why, indeed…not here. I refuse to have such a conversation among this _ordure_.”

“You’re still bleeding,” Angela said as she reached into one of the lockers and retrieved her coat. Amélie pulled it on, along with a pair of sweatpants and her shoes. She stuffed the clothes she’d arrived in into her purse.

“Blood stopped bothering me a long time ago.”

No one paid them any mind as they walked out of the building, back down the street and to the train station. Amélie said nothing, and Angela wasn’t sure whether to congratulate her on her victory or berate her taking such a risk when her work depended so heavily on dexterity and agility. It would only take one lucky strike to crush her hand or even break a finger, and then she would be lucky to ever get back on rotation.

They didn’t speak on the train, either. Amélie sat beside her rather than across the aisle, focused on unwinding the linen wraps that had been fastened underneath her gloves. Even that was graceful, just as her performance had been—in its own brutal, frenetic way. Her fingers simultaneously unraveled the wraps and rewound them away from her hand to keep from letting them dip to the floor. Angela watched her work, lips parting slightly, and barely noticed Amélie staring at her until it was too late to pretend she had been looking anywhere else.

“Isn’t this your stop?” Amélie asked.

“Oh. So it is.”

It was Amélie’s turn to follow, and she did so without complaint at the longer walk it took to get to Angela’s apartment. She did blanche at the stairs when they got into the building, but kept close behind even if she had to grip hard at the banister.

“Not exactly what I expected,” she said when Angela unlocked the door and flipped on a few lights. It was a fairly average space in Angela’s opinion, a small haven for herself to shut out all the wearying hours at the hospital. The only thing she regretted was that she didn’t get to see it as often as she would have liked.

“And what were you expecting?”

“A cat. You seem the type.”

Angela shrugged, pulled off her coat, and smoothed out the sweater underneath. “I’m not here often enough to have pets. Now, your back, if you please. I’ll lay out some towels in the bathroom for you to lay on.”

“Usually people buy me dinner before expecting me to take my clothes off,” she said. Angela started and looked back at her, but Amélie only curled her lips into the merest smirk. “You must really like me.”

Rather than dignify that with a response—and be forced to deal with the way her gut tied itself into a knot at the joke—Angela ducked into the bathroom and laid out some clean towels across the floor. Not exactly an operating room, but it would do. She set her first aid kit on the vanity, washed her hands, and put on gloves as Amélie walked in, stripped to the waist. “Do you want something for the…pain…”

She choked on her words and looked pointedly upward, where at least it wouldn’t be completely obvious that her face had gone a brilliant shade of red. It was silly, she’d seen more naked bodies than she cared to remember, but Amélie had none of the damage she was usually called for. And her dedication to remaining in fighting shape was very clearly evident, enough to make cogent speech difficult. Instead she gestured at the towels a few times and remained focused on her bathroom ceiling until Amélie was laying down and there was a wound Angela could focus on. She looked so peaceful, forearms tucked under her cheek as if she were getting a massage. Some fresh gauze dabbed away the blood that was still leaking and had smeared across her back under the hasty bandages, and Angela infused a few swabs with alcohol.

“This will sting.”

“I’ve done it before. The only reason I didn’t refuse you is that it’s hard to do with my own back.”

Angela hummed in acknowledgment and pressed the first swab into the wound. Amélie tensed and grimaced, but relaxed after a moment and nodded to ask her to continue. She reacted less to the second sting, and barely at all to the third, and soon the whole cut was disinfected to Angela’s satisfaction. “I hope steri-strips will do, I don’t want to suture such a large area in my bathroom.”

She nodded and stayed perfectly still while the adhesives went on. Angela wasn’t even sure if she was breathing through it at all. The cut wasn’t especially broad, just long, and Angela was able to close it with only four sets of strips. “There. We’ll let it breathe for an hour or so and then put another bandage along the length. Have someone give you some proper stitches and an antibiotic regimen before your next rotation. And no fighting with this.”

“As you wish.”

Angela set her supplies aside, sat down to relieve the low ache from kneeling, and crossed her arms. “Now then, I believe you were going to tell me why you were doing something so reckless? Something that could seriously damage your hand and end your entire career in the blink of an eye?”

“What is it you do that makes you feel alive?” Amélie asked, cracking one eye to look back at her. “What sets your blood aflame? What makes you know, if only for a moment, that you aren’t merely plodding your way through your small existence?”

She waited, but no matter how Angela racked her brain, no satisfactory answer surfaced. Work _was_ her life, and while it was satisfying, it was also too routine to say that it made her feel alive. “I…suppose I don’t have anything like that,” she admitted.

“Then there’s no good explanation I can offer. We liked to fight in the army to help blow off steam. It reminds me of that, of the friends I made there.” Her expression darkened, and she turned away, looking straight ahead. “It reminds me of the friends I wasn’t able to save.”

“I see.”

Amélie sat up, rolling her shoulders to test the flexibility of the bandages, while Angela looked pointedly down at her own lap and twiddled her thumbs. She huffed out something that might have been a laugh. “Am I truly that enthralling? _Es tu une saphiste, Docteur_?”

“That—that’s a very personal question,” Angela shot back, trying and failing to ignore the flip her stomach did. “Especially for someone who never has anything to say to anyone outside of work. Why would you even ask me such a thing?”

“Oh, I know you’re smarter than that.”

Carefully so as not to reopen her cut, Amélie got on all fours and crept over, closer and closer, until there was nowhere Angela could look that didn’t include her. Not that she wanted to. “Well?” Amélie asked, almost purring out the question, her voice little more than a warm, faint growl. “ _Tu apprécies la compagnie des femmes, Angela_?”

“You’re my resident…”

“We’re not at the hospital,” Amélie said, and edged forward.

Her lips were cool, almost cold like the rest of her, but soft and so very welcoming on her own. Angela pushed back against her, running a hand up into Amélie’s hair, suddenly desperate to explore every tiny bit of her lips and groaning when they moved apart. Amélie stood and offered her a hand, and Angela know that if she took it, then there wasn’t any turning back. She took it.

Her apartment was small, and Amélie had no trouble finding the bedroom before leading Angela inside. She kissed her once more, a rough and bruising crash, before pushing Angela down on her own bed. “Is there some reason you kept looking at my fingers all the way here?” Amélie asked as she reached forward. Angela pushed her hips up to help work her pants off, and in the blink of an eye they were lying discarded in a corner. “ _Curieux, peut-être_?”

Cool, sure hands ran the length of her legs, drawing up goosebumps and shivers in their wake, until they arrived at the hem of her panties. The fabric tore easily, and Angela sucked in a sharp breath when she felt the air hit her. Amélie grinned. “Relax, _Docteur_ , and perhaps we can find a way to set your blood aflame…”

That plan crumpled when Amélie’s tongue hit her, warm firm pressure tracing up the middle of her sex, and a heavy jolt of desire lanced up through her belly. Angela gripped at her sheets and arched her back, almost ashamed of how close she came to falling apart so quickly—but it had been a long time, and Amélie’s mouth was far and away better than her own hand. Half-lidded eyes gazed up at her, icy blue and hyperfocused, while Amélie’s tongue traced in long, swiping motions over the swollen bud of her clit. Her hand snaked into Amélie’s hair again and she pulled her closer. Amélie drew her mouth away, but not without one long, careful kiss. “Does the good doctor want more?”

Angela nodded pitifully, pleading for whatever Amélie could give her, and had to bite back a gasp when two fingers pressed against her, swirling in small circles through her arousal, before nodding furiously and losing her breath when they slipped inside.

Just the feeling of her fingers, long and graceful and dexterous as they pressed into her heat, was enough to make her clamp down slightly. The slight sting of penetration washed away when Amélie’s tongue resumed its circuit, and her fingers curling upward ever so slightly made Angela forget any semblance of discomfort. Back and forth they went, rubbing along just the right spot while her tongue continued its lashing. What breath Angela could draw came in short, sharp gasps, winding her up all the while as her back arched further, until her poor oversensitized body could take no more and crumpled under the attention. Her hips bucked as heat flooded through her body, she tightened around Amélie’s fingers until she felt so wonderfully, blissfully full, and her legs quivered as she collapsed. Amélie drew away again, licking her fingers dry, and chuckled. “Wound so tight, like a pretty Swiss clock.”

She had no clever retorts left in her, and all Angela could do was try and catch her breath as Amélie eased up beside her, lying on her stomach and watching Angela come down and navigate the aftershocks. “Blood aflame, was that what you said?”

Amélie grinned. She pulled at the drawstring of her pants and nudged them down as she watched Angela get to her shaking feet. “Leaving so soon?”

“I need something to return the favor without moving you too much,” Angela said as she pulled off her sweater and bra. She opened her closet and rooted around until she found the box she was looking for. Amélie was still watching her when she turned around and took out her toy, a simple shaft with a slight curve and a hooking shape at one end to keep it anchored. Amélie nodded with a slight wag to her hips, parting her legs as Angela went around the bed. Even while she was still coming down, another twinge of pleasure raced through her when she saw Amélie had worked one hand down between her legs, swirling her fingers in slow circles through her arousal. “I’m surprised you know how to use something like that,” Amélie said as Angela slid the shorter end of the toy into place. It was more substantial than Amélie’s fingers, to be sure, but it rested comfortably as she climbed back onto the bed.

Angela rolled her eyes and ran the shaft along the length of Amélie’s sex, already slick and expectant, and she glanced back as Angela let the head of the toy slip inside her. She taunted Amélie with the rest of the length, rocking forward slightly before pulling all the way back. The resistance worked on her as well, with a small ribbed section rubbing on her clit with each motion. “Mmhh…I’m not made of glass, you know. You can be a bit rougher.”

Glass or not, she gasped when Angela pushed deeper, burying the shaft until their hips were pressed to one another. She leaned down and wrapped her arms underneath Amélie, flush against her back, drawing back her hips and thrusting them forward as quickly as she could without risking falling apart again.

“I’ve always wanted you,” Angela whispered in between nipping at Amélie’s ear. She greedily palmed one soft breast and squeezed, eking out a moan for her effort. “From the first day you walked in, I wanted you. Seeing you in my department only made it worse. All I could think about when you were introducing yourself was bending you over the couch in my office and having you right then…”

Amélie craned her neck to kiss her, an urgent, needful plea, and Angela’s hips snapped of their own accord. Her pace turned frantic, pushing the toy between them as it hit spots that made her see stars, and she couldn’t even fathom caring about taunting or teasing. Amélie’s breath went ragged as Angela kept up her disjointed rhythm until she finally twisted up the sheets in her hands and screamed into one of the pillows. Feeling Amélie shake and push back on the toy sent her spiraling once more, until she was badly oversensitized and slowing to a stop.

For a moment neither of them could do anything but catch their breath, pulling back from their freneticism to the cool façades they had to wear so often. Angela kissed at Amélie’s neck before sliding her hips back, taking the toy with her and earning a groan for her trouble. She made a similar noise when she slipped it out of her and tossed it aside in favor of crawling back up the bed.

“The ethics board would have a field day, _non_?”

Angela nodded and reached over to her nightstand to set an alarm. “Early chores tomorrow?” Amélie asked.

“I haven’t seen daylight in a week. I want to be up for the sunrise.” Satisfied with her alarm, Angela rolled over again and curled up beside her bedmate. “I think you should stay and watch it with me so I can check that cut…”

Amélie laid a protective hand over her and nestled into one of the pillows. “As you wish, _Docteur_.”


End file.
